Aṣṭāvakra Saṃhitā
A Dialogue on Self-realization
Chapter 18, Verse 68
Order Now 
Ashtavakra Gita 18.68 -
बहुनात्र किमुक्तेन ज्ञाततत्त्वो महाशय: ।
भोगमोक्षनिराकाङ्क्षी सदा सर्वत्र नीरस:
bahunātra kim-uktena jñāta-tattvo mahāśayaḥ .
bhoga-mokṣa-nirākāṅkṣī sadā sarvatra nīrasaḥ .. 18-68..
Of what use is too much talk? The exalted soul who has known the supreme truth, desires neither sensory enjoyment nor even liberation. He lives anywhere, always free from any lingering fondness for anything.
Commentary by Swami Bhoomananda Tirtha
Why speak much, asks the Sage, about the Knower and his inner ecstatic freedom with which he lives and moves everywhere. He is in the same world where live all others. Others feel attracted and repelled variously and struggle to deal with their mind and delusion. Whereas the Knower lives and moves freely. Because of not taking to sensory indulgences, is he the least denied any enjoyment? Not at all. Joy is always a gift of the mind. Knower is inebriate with the joy and fullness of his Self, which is pure and blissful Consciousness. Imagine the kind and extent of his joy!
Knower has no restriction in his delightful abundance. Like blazing fire, the Self in him dazzles ecstatically. It is not conditioned by time, object or circumstances. As ice is ever cold, fire hot and brilliant, the inner spiritual Self is sweet, delightful and splendorous, incessantly so. Nothing can condition it. What the Knower derives is from within himself, hence free of all limitation.
Krishna speaks to Uddhava about this bliss as non-expectant delight welling forth from within, when the intelligence is not enveloped by desires, and one becomes a non-possessor at heart (Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 11.14.17 ). Understand the difference. Expectation constricts, non-expectation showers abundance.
Sensory delights are bodily, external. Self-delight is internal, from the very ‘I’. Which excels which?
Select Chapter and Verse
